Propaganda
by Frankie Downing
Summary: Hermione is perfectly happy with her little post-war life,thank you very much. But the Ministry disagrees. When they unveil a plan to make Hermione's personal life very public, will her little life ever be the same?


**A/N: Hello, all.**

**I've been awfully writing-lazy recently. This little story has been the only thing for months that I could muster up enough creative juices to write. It took me about three weeks of half-heartedly agonizing over my procrastination while pretending to be pretending that I was doing something more scholarly just to put this thing on paper.**

**It is extremely difficult to put a cohesive thought together when it's so pleasant outside.**

**J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter.**

According to many people, the last four years of Hermione Granger's life had been a waste. Just because she wasn't married with a baby on the way, just because she didn't hold a high-paying government position, just because she wasn't bathing in galleons at a manor in the countryside—was she a failure? She was a free-thinking young woman and she was happy with her lot. She didn't care that her relationship with Ron had ended in a mutual, amicable dissolution after three years of loyalty and commitment. She didn't mind working in a dead-end job as a saleswitch at Flourish and Blott's so she could finish that god-awful manuscript about elf rights. She even liked her tiny flat in the basement of a low-rent muggle building. Or so she told herself.

But when Hermione flooed home from her ex-boyfriend's wedding to find her toilet backed up, Crookshanks curled up in a nest made of two and a half years' worth of shredded house elf research , and an owl from the Ministry squawking incessantly at her tiny pavement level window, it was getting harder and harder to fool herself.

"One of these days, I swear," said Hermione with a glare at Crookshanks. "One of these days I will feed you to the owls." She hiked the skirt of her ruffled magenta bridesmaid dress—leave it to Lavender to choose such a horrid color—up around her thighs and crouched down to see what could be done about the tatters of her manuscript.

The cat had been growing increasingly destructive in his old age. In the last week alone, Crookshanks had managed to chew up at least three pairs of socks, destroy her only good set of work robes, and reduce ten galleons worth of the good parchment she could only get by owl order to mere cat litter. But one look at the shredded mess of the document into which she had been pumping every ounce of her brain power, and Hermione came to a conclusion: Crookshanks had outdone himself today.

After a few halfhearted spells, Hermione gave up the manuscript as a bad job and headed into her closet-sized bedroom to change out of—and possibly burn—that awful dress. It was only after fixing the toilet, shoving Crookshanks in his cat carrier, and settling down at her kitchen table with a cup of chamomile and a fuzzy blanket that she remembered the owl. It was still there, now just listlessly tapping at the windowpane. Hermione pried open the window—sometimes the latch stuck if it was too damp—and offered the owl a few treats from the bottom of the cup she kept on the sill. Hermione peeled the parchment off of its leg and watched it flap away into the night.

Hermione glanced at the handwriting on the letter and briefly considered throwing it in the fire. Her hand hovered over the flames, but she decided she at least owed it to Kingsley to read Percy's latest pompous missive, perhaps urging her to attend a meeting about post-war safety, or a "war hero" press conference. She popped open the wax seal and was surprised to see not Percy's large, looping scrawl, but the close, boxy writing of the Minister himself.

_Dear Miss Granger:_

_Your presence is URGENTLY REQUIRED by the Minister of Magic at 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon for a discussion concerning crucial matters of British wizarding welfare. As this meeting is strictly confidential, it would be greatly appreciated if you kept this message and its contents strictly private. _

_This is not the kind of invitation you can shrug off, Hermione. You must come tomorrow, or I can't be held responsible for the consequences._

_Sincerely, _

_ Minister Shacklebolt_

Hermione sighed. If Mr. Minister himself had deigned to write her, she supposed that she should probably attend, even though Crookshanks might be ill from all the parchment and socks he'd eaten lately, and she had work tomorrow and…honestly, it really would be better if she didn't go, she thought.

She really did hate visiting the ministry. The last time she had gone had been an utter disaster. The press had ambushed her at the floo entrances, blinded her with flashbulbs, and bombarded her with inappropriate questions about her love life. She had just come to interview Harry about his stance on house elf rights! And then, awful stories filled the tabloids for weeks. Really, she couldn't be expected to show up after such a horrible experience.

Hermione had almost made up her mind completely on the subject of her ministry visit, when a thought occurred. What if, she mused, Kingsley was summoning her to apologize for that security breach? It was a stretch, she knew. But Hermione had spent all her years at Hogwarts training herself to consider every possibility for the outcome of every situation, a skill which rather came in handy fighting Voldemort. Of course, another possibility was that Kingsley was asking her—again—if she might possibly want to become Head of Magical Law Enforcement. However, it was a chance she would have to take.

The next morning, Hermione called in sick to work, sat around her apartment analyzing Kingsley's motives, and stalled until she could stall no longer for fear of being late. She fixed her robes with a rather handy spell for removing wrinkles taught to her by Molly Weasley, took several fortifying deep breaths, and apparated directly to the visitor's entrance.

Where she ran directly into an enormous thicket of reporters. Immediately, she was engulfed in a gale of waving hands, explosive flashes, and shouts of,

"Hermione, look this way!"

"Hermione, is it true you're going to be the next Minister of Magic?"

"Hermione, are you really expecting Draco Malfoy's love child?"

"Oh, honestly!" Someone shouted. "Hermione has no comment at this time! For Merlin's sake, you vultures!" Hermione looked up from the photographer whose shin she was kicking. Percy Weasley, her savior and new best friend, was standing at the front of the crowd, waving his arms and shouting.

"This is a no paparazzi zone! By order of the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, vacate the premises!" Percy continued to shout. Slowly, the grumbling reporters flooded out of the alley.

"Nicely done, Percy," Hermione said as he grabbed her arm and hurried her into the visitor's entrance. "By the way, who's the Senior Undersecretary? I really should thank them."

"Go ahead," said Percy with a self-important grin. "He's right here."

"Oh, Percy, that's excellent!" Hermione exclaimed as they stepped into the atrium.

"Well, it was a hard-won promotion, but I certainly think I will do a fine job, and the Minister thinks so too, I'm the youngest Senior Undersecretary ever hired, only seven years out of Hogwarts—oh, sit down, Ludwig, she's with me," Percy shouted across the atrium when the little wizard at the visitor's desk yelled something about visitor check-in.

Hermione, who had begun tuning Percy out, followed him obediently into the lift. He pressed the button for level three, and she started mentally re-writing _Hogwarts: A History_. When the lift stopped, Percy led her out through a maze of cubicles and up to Kingsley's office. He knocked on the door, which swung open majestically to reveal a cavernous room wallpapered with pin-dotted maps, mug shots, and portraits of ministers past. Square in the middle of the room was a wide desk flanked by wide wooden chairs, some oriental rugs, and Kingsley, his bald head bent over a stack of papers.

"Hermione," he rumbled, looking up. "Good to see you. Please, sit down. We have lots to talk about." He shoved the papers aside, but not before Hermione saw several graphs, all in red with the lines pointing in a decidedly downward direction.

"I assume you are wondering why we're having this meeting. I was deliberately vague in my letter, because I was worried you wouldn't come." He rubbed his brow. "Let me give this to you straight, Hermione. The wizarding community is suffering. The war against Voldemort had a terrible toll on us. The people have no confidence anymore! Everyone's still terrified, and it's doing quite a number on everything and everyone.

"The number of official marriages has gone down fifty percent in the past ten years. Fifty percent! It's staggering! And don't even get me started on the declining population growth…There were a huge number of casualties in the war, but even a population as small as that of Wizarding Britain could conceivably survive. However, if the trends we see right now continue, wizardkind will become extinct in Britain sooner than I'd like to say."

"I understand," said Hermione. "But how does this concern me?" She had an idea. But she did not like it. Better to play dumb, she decided, and hope she was incorrect.

"Ah, yes. Well, Hermione, there's no denying that you, Harry, and Ron are the biggest celebrities of the age. You three have more sway over the youth—and the adults too—than any other wizards in Britain. They've started to call you the Golden Trio, for Merlin's sake! And you personally, Hermione, are the number one female role model for witches of all ages all across Western Europe. What you do influences entire nations!"

Hermione frowned. She had a terrible hunch that her idea was spot on. "Where are you going with this, Kingsley?"

"We need you to head a campaign. Not patriotic posters or anything, those don't do much. We just need some public appearances here and there, some tabloid photos of you doing things that support government procedures. This isn't like what the Scrimgeour administration tried to do, we don't need the people to support the government more. We need to build their confidence in the safety of society."

"Kingsley, you know I can't do that! I've been having problems with the press since I was fifteen! Why not get Harry and Ron to do it instead, they're the media darlings!"

"Hermione, we've gone over this. Harry and Ron have great sway over young men, but if we want the girls, the young women, we need you on board. Anyway, Harry and Ron are doing quite well on their own."

"Oh, no. You can't possibly mean what I think you mean. I will NOT do this, I—"

"Hermione, there is no way around this."

"I really sincerely hope I misunderstood you, Kingsley!"

Kingsley sighed. "Hermione, you must get married."


End file.
